The Assessor’s Office in Broadus is set to close at the end of February. The closure of the Broadus office comes at the tail end of a spate of closures across the state, due to a budget hit for the Montana Department of Revenue. The majority of satellite office closures occurred in 2018, with 28 counties losing their offices in total. The Broadus office, along with offices in Wolf Point and Roundup, are in the final list of closures.
The office closure means that Rich Sparks, longtime employee at the Broadus office, will retire. The closure also means that Rich’s duties as a tax appraiser will be turned over to the Miles City office, while other duties will fall upon the Powder River County Treasurer (and now Assessor), Pat Phillippi.
“I’m of the opinion that the taxpayers of Powder River County will be less served in the future than they were in the past, as there won’t be the potential for face to face conversations to figure out issues,” Rich spoke of the closure. During his 30 year tenure working for the State, Rich not only served in the role of tax appraiser for property, but also as a face to face contact for residents to voice their questions and comments regarding the murky world of property valuation and other such tax issues.
The Assessor’s Office also serves as a repository for a vast amount of historical information, for example who homesteaded and initially paid taxes on a piece of property.
A great deal of this data will remain at the courthouse, while the technical aspects of the job will move on to field agents from the Miles City office, as well as Pat Phillippi, who has attended training for her new duties.
Sparks noted that he’s seen a great deal of change over his tenure. When he started, the Broadus office had four employees, and handled vehicle valuations, while personally serving several county residents a day. While the number of staffers dwindled over the years, the technology involved with the job increased – the Department of Revenue was among the first state agencies to embrace computers.
“The Department’s first computers were in Helena. We had to collect the data and send it in, where someone in Helena would input it into a computer. Eventually our office got computers, but in the days before the internet we still had to mail a floppy disk with our data up to Helena once a week,” Sparks said.
After retirement from the State, Rich plans to continue his work as a certified general appraiser, where he specializes in agricultural properties. Rich will stay in the area with his wife, Jeannie, which means Powder River County will keep Rich’s knowledge base learned through 30 years of work, even if the job itself is going away.
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